More about Ancient Greece: Gary Corby

Gary Corby wrote a series of books based in Athens in the brief period I refer to in a prior post: about 50 years of Athenian democracy.

I read through them all with great delight, only to be disappointed that the last was written in 2017 and no other book was forthcoming. 

Corby might be planning another. But he also may have decided to end with Death on Delos, which in fact hints at the beginnings of the end: in history, Athens decided to protect itself--and focus on building an empire--by removing the "treasury" for all the Greek city states from Delos to Athens. 

Athens kept the Persians at bay until the Spartans got fed up with Athens and used Persian funding to attack that city state, leading eventually to...Alexander the Great, actually. But not democracy. 

Corby may have decided that watching a fairly impressive experiment fail was a little too sad. His protagonist, Nicoloas, is the older brother of the (very irritating) youthful Socrates. Nicoloas is married to a strong and intelligent priestess, Diotima. They do marry. The series ends when Diotima gives birth. 

To continue the series would likely see Nicoloas go off to war. He would likely die long before his younger brother, who died several decades later at age 70ish. 

Socrates and his execution by poison is part of the failing state. My basic view of true pluralism is, "If you can't handle your blowhards, you ain't working." Athenian democracy had stopped working.  

Introduces one of my favorite villains!

I recommend Corby's series. What I like is that his main characters, Nicoloas and Diotima. are quite appealing and entirely in favor of Athenian culture. They are pro-democracy but they are pro the democracy they know. So they have slaves. And everyone mostly accepts that a father determines what happens to everybody in a family. Nicoloas and Diotima's families hover on the edge of what we would call the lower middle class and don't have many resources to fall back on. 

In fact, much of the lifestyle that Nicoloas and Diotima take for granted would appall us moderns. But Corby manages to make it "modern" (Athens was more democratic than its neighbors and, therefore, more like what we understand) and historical at the same time. The protagonists are self-aware, yet also part of the world in which they reside. They take some things for granted, such as the need for a patron and for land to pull themselves up economically. They question other things, such as different forms of governance. They are appalled by other cultures since they see themselves as special and unique, and they are frankly right in some cases.  

Writing historical fiction isn't easy. Corby succeeds!